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Ontario Schools to Start Sex Ed in First Grade, LGBT Issues in Third Grade

  • Amanda Casanova

    Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and…

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  • Updated Feb 24, 2015

Ontario is updating their sex-education curriculum and will start teaching children as young as six about consent.

“The world had changed a lot in the last 15 years. Concepts such as smartphones, SnapChat and sexting were not familiar to anyone, let alone students,” Education Minister Liz Sandals told reporters at a news conference.

“Today, we live in a digital and interconnected world where information is literally at our fingertips around the clock. Students have instant access to quite explicit information from unreliable, inaccurate and often offensive sources. This is why it's so important to ensure that our children have the right information.”

Under the new curriculum, students aged six and seven will learn to understand non-verbal signals and the proper names for body parts the Daily Mail reports.

Students in the second grade will learn about the stages of developments, bodily changes and the concept of “no means no.”

Students in the third grade will learn about same-sex relationships, and fourth graders will learn about online bullying.

Sixth grade students will learn about “gender expression” and masturbation, and seventh and eighth graders will learn about contraception, oral sex and sexually transmitted diseases.

The province is also providing parents’ guides for at-home conversations about the topics.

The curriculum will be implemented in September.

Publication date: February 24, 2015